Haimar Zubeldia and Markel Irizar the only men from nine-man Tour de France roster to be racing in Europe this week
With four of its nine-man team crashing out of the race, there will only be one RadioShack rider from its Tour de France team at either the Clásica San Sebastian or Tour of Poland this weekend. Of the four captains the team took to the Tour only one, Levi Leipheimer, escaped without injury; with the 37-year-old set to ride the Tour of Utah, which starts on August 9th, he is sitting out the European races.
The only riders from the Tour roster to start either race will be the two Basques Haimar Zubeldia and Markel Irizar, riding their local classic.
Zubeldia and Irizar will be joined by Ben Hermans, who recently finished third in the Tour de Wallonie, with Fumi Beppu and much of the team that guided Hermans to that result. With the team’s injury list, as well as the Tour of Poland starting the following day, RadioShack will only be sending seven riders to San Sebastian instead of eight.
Like Zubeldia and Irizar, Michal Kwiatkowski, the team’s Polish rider will be starting his home tour on Sunday. Alongside Kwiatkowski will be US champion Matthew Busche, three of the team’s four Portuguese riders: Manuel Cardoso, Tiago Machado and national champion Nelson Oliveira. The team’s overall classification rider will likely be Frenchman Geoffroy Lequatre who, after missing out on a spot at the Tour, finished ninth in the Österreich-Rundfahrt earlier this month.
RadioShack team for the Clásica San Sebastián:
Fumiyuki Beppu, Philip Deignan, Ben Hermans, Markel Irizar, Jason McCartney, Bjørn Selander & Haimar Zubeldia
Director: Johan Bruyneel
RadioShack team for the Tour of Poland:
Sam Bewley, Matthew Busche, Manuel Cardoso, Michal Kwiatkowski, Geoffroy Lequatre, Tiago Machado, Nelson Oliveira & Ivan Rovny
Directors: Viatcheslav Ekimov & José Azevedo